State Dept. pilot program ‘cut off flow of business to me,’ says Stamford passport photo store owner

STAMFORD — Scores of people line up each day outside the Connecticut Passport Agency’s office at 850 Canal St., in the city’s South End. But since the beginning of September, only a handful of them have gotten their pictures taken at the Passport Pro shop next door.

Passport Pro owner Kurt Olson blames the plunge in foot traffic at his store on a photo-taking pilot program that resumed Sept. 1 at the passport center, after the COVID-19 pandemic had forced its suspension in March 2020 several weeks into its roll-out.

If the situation does not change soon, Olson fears that Passport Pro could go out of business by the end of this year. Compounding Olson’s distress is his frustration about a dearth of communication from the Connecticut Passport Agency’s parent organization, the U.S. Department of State, and bewilderment about why the passport center is adding photography to its workload amid a massive nationwide backlog in…

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